Contents

Overview

Another article of our endless series that talks about accessing URL shortening services programmatically.

This article is talking about 1click.at shortening service, how you can use it, and how to access it via your C#/VB.NET application.

Introduction

We can’t say that 1click.atis not one of the well-known services nor it has anything special, however, as long as it provides an API we are very interested in it.

When you visit service website, http://1click.at, you can see that nothing easier from 1click.at, just push your long URL into the text box and click the shortening button.

API

1click.at provides you a very simple easy-to-use API. This API contains only one function that’s used for shortening URLs. Another good thing is that this function doesn’t require any kind of authentication for users. Therefore, you need just to send it your long URL (as you did with the website.)

action:
Yet, it can accept only one value, shorturl, which orders the function to shorten the specified url.

url:
The long URL to be shortened.

format:
The format of the returned data from the function. Can be simple, xml, or json.

As you know, the .NET BCL doesn’t support JSON (some third-party components do,) and thus, we won’t cover JSON data returned from the function. Rather, we’ll concentrate on plain and XML data returned.

When the format of this function is XML, the returned data, if the function succeeded, is like the following if this is your first time you shorten this URL:

Contents

Contents of this article:

Contents

Overview

Introduction

API

WCF Services

Squeeze Service

Reporting Service

RESTful Services

Squeeze Service

Reporting Service

Source Code

What’s next

Overview

This is another article of our URL shortening services series. This article is talking about X.co shortening service provided by Go Daddy. If you don’t know how to access this service from your .NET application, then it’s the time to.

We’ll have a complete discussion of the WCF services offered by X.co. Then, we’ll consider the RESTful interfaces provided.

Introduction

Today we are going to talk about one of the most popular URL shortening services on the web now; it’s the new X.co provided by Go Daddy, the dominating domain names and web hosting service provider.

While X.co is considered very new since it has released just few months ago, it gained support from users worldwide very quickly, and now it’s one of the most popular shortening services exist in the web. Although the interface provided to users doesn’t offer great functionality, the API interface it provides really deserves respect since it’s one of the most easiest yet powerful APIs (for shortening services) exist on the web now.

API

The most noticeable thing about X.co API is that unlike other APIs it’s based on ASP.NET and WCF (WOW!) Moreover, the WCF service provides you a RESTful interface. Thus, you end up with two interfaces, one is based on WCF, and other is a REST web service.

You might not be familiar with WCF or other new technologies related to versions higher than .NET 2.0, don’t worry it’s just a matter of names! You use WCF services the same way as with ordinary Web Services.

In this writing, we’ll first talk about WCF/Web service interfaces provided to you by X.co. After that, we’ll have a look at how RESTful interfaces fit in the picture.

Before we begin our discussion, you’ll need to grab your API key that’s required by all functions for authentication. To get your API key, first create a free account at http://www.godaddy.com if you don’t have one yet. Figure 1 shows the registration page.

Figure 1 - Go Daddy Registration Page

After you complete the registration process, go to http://x.co, login with your username and password, and go to Settings to get your API key. See figure 2.

Figure 2 - X.co API Key

Notice that this is a secret key and you should keep it away from intruder eyes. This key will be used in all of your work with X.co API.

WCF Services

WCF or Web services, not a big deal, let’s just call it WCF. Our service X.co provides you two WCF services that you can access:

The Squeeze service supports only one function that can be used to shorten (squeeze) long URLs. In fact, the Squeeze service provides other functions too, however, they are either deprecated or for the internal use of Go Daddy. The other service, the Reporting service, supports functions related to reports and analytics of short URLs (like clicks and referrer sites.)

Whatever service you like to use, you must reference it to your projects. To add a reference to a web service to your project, you can use one of two ways. The first and better way is to use Visual Studio. Right-click the Web References node under your project node in Solution Explorer and select Add Web Reference to launch the Add Web Reference dialog (see figure 3.)

Figure 3 - Solution Explorer - Add Web Reference

The Add Web Reference dialog is now on the top of the IDE, the dialog might appear different in .NET 2.0 than higher versions (see figure 4 and figure 5.) Whatever, write the address of the service that you need to add, click Go so can Visual Studio read service description, write a good name in the Reference Name field that would be the namespace that groups service objects, and finally click Add Reference. Notice that we have used the name xcoapi for the Squeeze service, and xcoapirpt for the Reporting service.

Figure 4 - Add Web Reference Dialog in .NET 3.0+

Figure 5 - Add Web Reference Dialog in .NET 2.0

Another approach to get the required source files for the service is to use the svcutil.exe tool that’s used internally by Visual Studio. This is a command tool that generates source files for web and WCF services. You can use this tool as follows:

Notice that we have included the address of the discovery (description) WSDL data of the services so that the tool can read it. Remember to select your language in the command.

Squeeze Service

The first function we have today and the only function of the Squeeze service (http://api.x.co/Squeeze.svc) is the Shorten() function that’s used to shorten long URL files. This function simply accepts 2 arguments:

url:
The long URL to be shortened.

apiKey:
The API key used to authenticate the call.

There’re other functions existing in the Squeeze service but they are either deprecated or reserved for internal use by Go Daddy.

After you ensure that a reference of the service is added to your project (check the previous section) you can start writing your code. The following function accepts the long URL and returned the shortened one that’s -at the time of this writing- is no more than 16 characters (e.g. http://x.co/8Gg8):

In addition, the last four functions work the same way. They all return arrays of objects. GetMapClicksByHour() for instance returns the number of clicks made today grouped by hours each hour is represented by an object that contain the hour number besides the clicks made in that hour, and all objects are grouped inside one array.

The other functions GetMapClicksByDates(), GetMapReferrersByDates(), and GetMapLocationsByDates() work the same way and accept the same parameters except that they accept four additional parameters represent the begin and the end dates of the time period and whether the date parameters were set or leaved empty.

How can the four parameters help? You can define both and set the two flags to indicate that we need a specific time period. You can also set one of them and set its flag to indicate that you need to start from a specific day and get analytics till now. Notice that you can’t leave both empty.

The following code returns the total number of clicks for a specific short URL:

Notice how we specify the start and end date parameters and their flags to get only the last week analytics. Notice also the type of the array returned from the function and how we used it to get the required information.

RESTful Services

If you prefer not to use the WCF services, you can start with the REST interface provided to you by the kind-hearted WCF services. A RESTful service is simply a group of related web functions that has specific formats; some of return plaint text, some return XML data, and others return JSON.

Keep in mind that WCF services are supported natively by .NET framework and thus they are faster and easier to work with.

Squeeze Service

Not surprisingly, our RESTful Squeeze service is provided to us by the address http://api.x.co/Squeeze.svc. This service has two functions to shorten URLs, one is JSON, and the other is plain text.

The first function that returns plain text can be called using the following address:

http://api.x.co/Squeeze.svc/text/{apiKey}?url={url}

Now you have the address and ready with the input, the following function calls the previous function to shorten long URLs:

Reporting Service

Likewise, the Reporting service has the following address: http://api.x.co/Squeeze.svc. This service provides you with many functions like its WCF counterpart, however, all of them are JSON expect one is plain text. Because JSON is not natively supported by .NET Framework and thus requires the use of other 3rd party components (e.g. Json.NET) we won’t consider those endpoints. However, we have our total clicks function that returns plain text:

API

Overview

The bit.ly API is a REST web service; means that it’s a collection of HTTP endpoints each accessed by a simple address filled with arguments the function (endpoint) requires the way you fill up query strings of a web page. Actually, you don’t need to care about REST web services or HTTP endpoints; you just need to know how to call those functions (simply, to access those addresses programmatically.)

Yet, the current and only version of the API is version 3 and that can be accessed using the following address:

Simply, substitute function_name with the name of the function you need to call, and replace args with function arguments.

Notice that you can try any function by just typing the address into the browser and navigating to the results.

Functions:

The API provides you with lots of functions that satisfy your application needs. The following list contains the functions available:

Shorten:
Used to shorten a long URL.

Expand:
Used to expand the URL; to get the original long URL from the short one.

Validate:
Used to validate a username and his API key.

Clicks:
Used to retrieve stats (number of clicks) about the short URL specified.

Lookup:
Used to check a long URL if exists in the database, i.e., if it has been shortened before.

Info:
Used to retrieve information about the URL (e.g. the user created it, page title, etc.)

Authenticate:
Used to check if a username and password are valid. Access restricted, more information available later at the end of this article.

As you see, the API of bit.ly is the most sophisticated yet powerful API compared to the APIs of the other URL shortening services.

Input Arguments:

Any URL passed to a function must be encoded first to eliminate the ‘#’, ‘?’, ‘=’ and other problematic characters in the URL. For encoding a URL, the function System.Net.Uri.EscapeUriString() is very sufficient.

There’re three main required arguments that are used by all functions:

login:
Username.

apiKey:
The key used to authenticate the user access to the API.

format:
The format (type) of returned data from functions.

Those three are required by all functions and you cannot work without one of them.

Authentication:

All functions require user authentication. The user can prove his identity using his login name (username) and his API key (not his password.) You can get your API key by accessing the page http://bit.ly/a/account (after logging on to your account) or directly from http://bit.ly/a/your_api_key.

One of the hot features of the API is that it provides you a demo user that can be used in your API training, the information of that user is as follows:

Username: bitlyapidemo

API Key: R_0da49e0a9118ff35f52f629d2d71bf07

You might face problems with this account like violation of rate limits and many other problems, and that because it’s used by many users in the same time. Therefore, it’s recommended that you use another account.

Supported Formats:

The API supports two formats of its returned data, XML and JSON (the default.) Yes it supports plain text too, but it’s not supported by all functions. XML data is easily manipulated by XML, so we’ll concentrate on XML besides the plain text format of course.

Handling Errors:

If the function failed and you have specified the format as Plain Text (txt) in the call, you get an exception thrown in your code. If the format was XML, you can check the returned data for whether the function succeeded or not.

Here we have status_code set to the value 200 if the function succeeded and to the error code if the function failed. The status_txt describes the status of the function, it’s set to ‘OK’ if the function succeeded and to the error description if the function failed.

The rest of the XML data is defined based on the function.

Preferred Domain:

You have the option to use one of two domains, http://bit.ly and http://j.mp (new,) both offer you the same functionality and the same flexibility, however, the first counts to 20 characters while the other counts to only 18. (The domain can be set in the shortening function in the argument domain.)

Keep in mind that the code just after the domain name (e.g. bnPuEX of http://bit.ly/bnPuEX) is called Hash and it is exactly 6 characters (case-sensitive.)

There’re two types of hash, each short URL has many hashes:

User Hash:
That hash of the URL generated for a given user shortened the URL. That means that a long URL might have more than one user hash equals to the number of users shortened that URL. (More than one hash means more than one short URL.)

Global Hash:
A hash that is shared by all users for the same short URL.

Thus, a short URL has only one global hash, but it might have more than one user hash (for each user shortened the same long URL.)

Rate Limits:

You cannot think about making thousands of function calls every hour, access to the API is limited for each user on an hourly base. Limits are very sufficient for your application, but it’s going not to be sufficient if you are willing to spam the service or to drop it!

Function Explanation

Now we are going to talk about each function and how you can call it.

First, get your API key that will be used to authenticate your calls to the API. If you need to bother yourself and to clog your application use the demo API user bitlyapidemo that have the API key R_0da49e0a9118ff35f52f629d2d71bf07.

Shortening Function

The first function we are going to talk about today is the shortening function, shorten. This function has the following address http://api.bit.ly/v3/shorten (as you expected) and is used to shorten long URLs. Besides main arguments key, apiKey, and format, it takes two more:

longUrl:
The long URL to be shortened.

domain:
Optional. The preferred domain, bit.ly or j.mp.

You can get hands on this function and try it simply by navigating to the results of the following URL:

Expanding Function

The next function we have is the function that is used to expand a URL, i.e., to get the long URL from the short one. Obviously, this function is called expand and it accepts the short URL shortUrl besides the three main arguments.

Likewise, calling this function generate a data based on the function format, txt, xml, or json. The following XML data is generated when the function is called while the format is set to xml:

Validation Function

The function validate is used to check if another username and API key pair is valid. For this function to work, you should use valid API credentials to check for the other credentials if they are valid or not. Therefore, you are going to use two additional arguments for the additional credentials, x_login and x_apiKey.

This function doesn’t support plain text format. If XML was used, the function returns data like the following:

Stats Function

This function is used to get stats about the short URL; the stats are represented in two values, user clicks and global clicks. User clicks value is the number of access times made to that user link. Global clicks value is the number of access times made from all short URLs (from all users) refer to the same address (almost like user hashes and global hash.)

The function only accepts the short URL, shortUrl, besides the three main arguments. The data returned from the function is almost like this (in XML):

Authentication Function

This is the last function today, the authenticate function. This function is used to check whether a username and a password are valid. Although this function and the validation function work the same way, there’s a big difference. The validation function checks for API credentials, the username and the API key, while this function checks for login information, the username and the password. Another big difference is that this function is currently access-restricted and you cannot use it before asking for permission from api@bit.ly.

This function accepts two addition parameters, the username x_login and the password x_password.

This function is called in a very specific way. You add arguments in the body of your request. In addition, the request is made by the method POST.

If the function succeeded you get the API key for that user. For example:

JSON Support

We have been talking about the API and its support for XML and plain text formats and we missed the third one (is also the default,) that is JSON (JavaScript Object Notation.) Although XML and plain-text are enough and sufficient for most applications, and they’re very easy too, there’re some times when you are forced to work with JSON (some web services support only JSON data.) At least for completeness’ sake, we need to know how to handle JSON data when we have it in our hands.

Worth mentioning that JSON is not supported by versions before .NET 3.5.

First thing to know about bit.ly API is that you can get JSON data out of a function by passing the value json to the format parameter. Other way is to omit the format parameter completely, that’s because JSON is the default format that will be used when the format parameter not specified.

Let’s take the shortening function as an example. Try calling the shortening function specifying json in the format parameter or removing the parameter completely:

Can you notice the similarities between the structure of this JSON-formatted data and the XML-formatted data we have seen earlier? Actually, the structure is the same, there’s no difference except how data is formatted.

Looking at this JSON snippet we can see that it’s just a structure contains a few members, every member has a name and value both separated by a colon (:) and each surrounded by double quotes, members are separated by commas (,), and the whole structure is surrounded by curly brackets. Worth mentioning that the data member is a compound data member, means that it defines some other members inside it.

The first step in handling JSON data is to create .NET classes/structures from the JSON code keeping the same structure definitions and parameter names. For our example, we need to create the following classes:

Here comes the trick, the DataContractJsonSerializer class that’s available in the namespace System.Runtime.Serialization.Json which is available in System.Runtime.Serialization.dll for .NET 4.0 and in System.ServiceModel.Web.dll for .NET 3.5 (not available before version 3.5.)

This class can be used in two ways: to serialize (i.e. generate JSON data from a structure) or to deserialize (i.e. return the data structure from JSON data) this data. To serialize some data you call any of the WriteXXX() functions (based on the data type,) to deserialize this data you call any of the ReadXXX() functions (based on the data type too.)

After you add the right assembly to project references and import the namespace System.Runtime.Serialization.Json, you can now start coding:

URL Previewing (registered and non-registered users):
Preview the URL before opening it. Protects you from spam and unwanted sites.

API

Cligs provides you a very nice APIwith many advantages. The first advantage that we want to talk about is its simplicity. The API is very simple; it has just two functions, one for shortening URLs, and the other for expanding short URLs (to expand a URL means to get the long URL from the short one.)

Another advantage of this API is that it allows you to shorten the URLs whether you are a registered user or not. Of course a registered user need to get an API key in order to link the API calls to his accounts so he can manage the links generated by the API and to watch the analytics.

Shortening URLs

The first function is used for shortening URLs and it’s called, create. This function has the following address:

http://cli.gs/api/v1/cligs/create?url={1}&title={2}&key={3}&appid={4}

The API is still in version 1, that’s why you see ‘v1’ in the address. This function takes four parameters, only the first one is required, other parameters are used for authentication:

url:
Required. The URL to be shortened.

title:
Optional. For authenticated calls only. The name that would be displayed on the short URL in your control panel (used for managing your URLs.)

key:
Optional. If you are a registered user and you want to link the API calls to your account, you’ll need to enter your API key here.

appid:
Optional. If you have used an API key, then you have to provide your application name that used to generate this API call (help users know the source of the link.)

So how can you use this function? If this is an anonymous call (i.e. no authentication details provided,) just call the function providing the long URL in its single required argument.

If you need to link this call to a specific account, then you’ll need an API key, which the user can get by signing in to his Cligs account, choosing ‘My API Keys’, then clicking ‘Create New API Key’ (if he doesn’t have one you.) The last step generates an API key that’s no exactly 32 characters (see figure 1.)

After you get the API key, you can push it to the function along with your application name in the appid argument.

What about the title argument? For registered users, they can access their clig list (see figure 2) and see the URLs they shortened and the titles they choose above each of the URLs.

Figure 2 - My Cligs, Cligs

Now, let’s code! The following function makes use of the Cligs API to shorten URLs. It accepts three arguments, the long URL, the API key, and the application name. If the API key is null (Nothing in VB.NET,) the call is made anonymously, otherwise, the API key and the application name are used.

Expanding URLs

The other function we have today is the expand function that’s used to get the long URL from the short one (e.g. to expand the short URL http://cli.gs/p1hUnW to be http://JustLikeAMagic.com.) This function is very simple and it has the following address:

http://cli.gs/api/v1/cligs/expand?clig={1}

This function accepts only a single argument, that’s the clig (short URL) to be expanded. The clig can be specified using one of three ways:

Contents

Overview

Today, we are going to talk about another hot and easy-to-use service, it’s Tweetburner. If you haven’t used it before, then it’s the time to.

We’re going to discuss how to use Tweetburner first. After that, we’ll inspect its API and learn how to use it in your .NET application.

Introduction

Again, one of the most popular URL shortening services ever.

Today is dedicated for Tweetburner (known as twurl,) one of the hot, simple, and easy-to-use shortening services that you can compare to is.gd.

Description

When you visit Tweetburner website (via http://tweetburner.com or http://twurl.nl,) you can see that it allows users to register to gain more functionalities (specifically, link analytics.) However, at the time of this writing, the account page is disabled for technical issues and nothing interesting would happen if you register there.

One of the hot features of Tweetburner is that it allows you to post your links to twitter (you guessed) and friendfeed as soon as they’re shortened just click ‘Share this link’ before you leave the page.

Figure 1 - Shortening a URL, Tweetburner

Figure 2 - Sharing a URL, Tweetburner

Unfortunately, you can’t benefit from this sharing feature programmatically, but of course, you can create your own routines.

After shrinking your URL, you get a new short link about 22 characters long (18 in is.gd) prefixed with http://twurl.nl.

API

Actually, Tweetburner doesn’t help you with an API. Instead, it provides you with a simple web page (used for shortening URLs) that you can access it from your code and get your short URLs.

So how you can access this page via your .NET application and fill in its single field? Let’s get the idea! If you check the API documentation page, you might find that you are required just to request information from that page, post it the required URL via a simple string included in the request body, link[url]={0} (where {0} is the long URL, and just wait for the response that would contain the short URL of course if the function succeed.

Do you find that ‘link[url]={0}’ strange? Try this with me! Browse to our page, http://tweetburner.com/links, and save it as HTML in your PC (not required, just grab its HTML code.)

Sure we are interested on this magical text box, so scroll down to its definition that looks like this:

Notice that the text box is given the name ‘link[url]’, that’s why we push ‘link[url]={0}’ on the request body. Given that hot information, you can push any data to any web form, just get the information required.

Now, let’s code! The next function browses to our page, http://tweetburner.com/links, pushes the long URL specified, and gets the short URL back from the server. (Remember to include the namespace System.Net for the code to work properly.)

Notice that we have specified the POST method because it’s required if you are going to change some data in the server. It’s worth mentioning too that we have set the content type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded because it’s required if you are going to push data to a web form (it’s usually perfect for all web forms except file-uploads.)

In addition, we have included the input required in the request stream.

Overview

Another article of our series that talks about accessing URL shortening services programmatically.

This article is talking about is.gd shortening service, how you can use it, and how to access it via your C#/VB.NET application.

Introduction

is.gdis one of the most popular shortening services ever in the web because of its simple interface and its easy-to-use API.

When you visit service website, http://is.gd, you can see that nothing easier from is.gd, just push your long URL into the text box and click the shortening button.

API

is.gd provides you a very simple easy-to-use API. This API contains only one function that’s used for shortening URLs. Another good thing is that this function doesn’t require any kind of authentication for users. Therefore, you need just to spam it with your long URL (as you did with the website.)

This glorious function is called http://is.gd/api.php, it accepts only a single argument, longurl, which can be set to the long URL you need to shorten. When you call the function, it simply returns the shortened URL as plain text (no more overhead.)

Contents

Overview

This is the first article of our series that talks about accessing URL shortening services programmatically.

Here we introduce new concepts like the REST API. We also have a brief discussion of URL shortening services APIs and how you can access them.

In addition, we are going to talk about .NET support for the REST API and tools and techniques available that would help us during our journey through the API.

A working example built using C# and WinForms is available at the end of this article.

This article is the base for all other articles. Articles other than this discuss specific services and their APIs. We will make use of code and techniques discussed here throughout the rest of articles.

Let’s go!

Introduction

URL shortening services are very popular these days since web addresses tend to be very long and very difficult to be exchanged via email or other micro-blogging services like Twitter.

Today, there’re tenths of URL shortening services spread out all over the web. Most of them are listed in the following articles:

In this series, we are going to talk about how to consume URL shortening services in your .NET application. In other words, we will discuss how to program URL shortening services; we mean how to access them programmatically. In addition, we will have a brief discussion of each service and its unique features.

How we will go through this discussion? This is going to be a series of articles published regularly. Each article discusses a given shortening service from the following list (updated regularly, expect new services to be added):

The preceding list may not be comprehensive, many other popular services exist. However, not all shortening services have APIs! The preceding list contains the shortening services we know that allow developers to consume their functionalities via an exposed API.

Before we start with a specific service, let’s have a brief discussion of features of the API and how we can access them.

Accessing the API

Most APIs in the web are just REST (Representational State Transfer) web services. A REST web service is simply a collection of functions (HTTP endpoints) that can be used to retrieve data in a variety of formats (optional.)

Given an endpoint (function) like http://ab.c/api/shrink, we could supply the required input arguments as query strings in the URL. For example, we could shorten the URL www.google.com using a call to the HTTP endpoint http://ab.c/api/shrink?url=www.google.com supplied with the required information. It is worth mentioning that every service has its own API functions and arguments. Although they all do the same thing (shortening the URL,) they differ in function and argument names.

When you call a web function, you just end up with the results in the format used in that function (XML, Atom, JSON, etc.) The function could also return plain text! It’s all about the function documentation that you should check carefully before calling the function. In addition, the returned value from a function may also contain error details if the function didn’t success.

Keep in mind that API calls are limited and you can’t just leave the shortening code in an end-less loop! Other limitations of specific APIs should be discussed later.

Authentication

Most URL shortening services allow users to consume the service without being registered, some of allow users to register, and others not. Many other services require users to be registered in order to use the service.

Likewise, service APIs may or may not require user authentication. Some services give the user an API key that can be used in the authentication process. Other services require user to enter his login details in the API calls. Most use the API key approach.

.NET Support

Does .NET support the REST API? Sure! As long as REST web services are just collections of HTTP endpoints, we do not need to worry about accessing them from .NET since that the BCL offers us a bunch of classes (available in System.dll) that can help with HTTP requests and responses.

In addition, we will rely heavily on classes of System.Xml.dll to handle the data returned from functions (we will make use of functions that support XML.)

If we could write something in C# that calls our fake web function http://ab.c/api/shrink, we could end up with some code like this:

So how can we encode URLs? Simply use the EscapeUriString() function of System.Net.Uri class it would work well for us here. If you need a full-featured encoder; a procedure that would work for all and every situation, you will need to consider creating one yourself, or you can use this: